<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: rorytbyrne</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rorytbyrne</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:41:01 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=rorytbyrne" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Ask HN: Are you interested in building devtools/infra for science?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>This is more on the ed-tech side right? I'm thinking more tooling to help a synthetic biologist design a protein, or a DARPA PM integrate the research activities of the labs they fund.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2026 15:55:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48296159</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48296159</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48296159</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Ask HN: Are you interested in building devtools/infra for science?]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I used to be a regular backend developer, then I started a biology PhD. It seems like lots of people do computational work, but the landscape of devtools is pretty sparse. This is slowly changing (partly due to new AI-for-science interest), but it feels like there's still lots of low-hanging fruit to be built.<p>E.g. data infrastructure, declarative tooling for experiments, visualisation tooling, data sharing/exchange services, provenance infrastructure for threading data generation through to ML model training, protocols for lab equipment, etc.<p>So I'm wondering if people on the more traditional side of tech are interested in building devtools/infra for science, what you see as the main barriers, whether there's anything specific you'd like to build, and what would help you get started?<p>For those working in science, I'm also curious what tools you'd like to see built, and whether you'd be willing to collaborate with an engineer to make them happen?</p>
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<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48295946">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48295946</a></p>
<p>Points: 3</p>
<p># Comments: 3</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 May 2026 15:40:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48295946</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48295946</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48295946</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Open Science Archive: open infrastructure for scientific databases, so that every field gets its own Protein Data Bank in 1-click.<p>Code: <a href="https://github.com/opensciencearchive/server" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/opensciencearchive/server</a>.<p>Website: <a href="https://opensciencearchive.org/" rel="nofollow">https://opensciencearchive.org/</a><p>Two demos:<p><a href="https://pockets.bio" rel="nofollow">https://pockets.bio</a><p><a href="https://lingual.bio" rel="nofollow">https://lingual.bio</a><p>I've got demos up and running (mirroring/extending PDB and GEO). Next I'm working on APIs with good AX, ML-friendly export, and an unified AI-driven UI that works for all scientific data types.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 12 Apr 2026 21:14:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47744573</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47744573</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47744573</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Books of the Century by Le Monde"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Of course it's relevant to how it's seen today. French culture nurtured the author, a French publisher published it, and France didn't ban it while other countries did. This is all evidence that the book was well-liked in France when it was published, and there's no reason to think that would change over time.<p>If anything, it's surprising that English-speaking countries like it so much.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 22 Mar 2026 14:35:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47477950</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47477950</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47477950</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Books of the Century by Le Monde"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Ulysses was first published in Paris during the 20 years that Joyce lived there.<p>>I thought only the US ranks it high<p>Joyce never even set foot in the United States... You could say this about The Great Gatsby, which US sources might rank in the top 5 compared to 46 in this list.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 21 Mar 2026 17:31:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47469177</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47469177</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47469177</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Ireland rolls out basic income scheme for artists"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Why is "singing along" a relevant metric?<p>In Dublin's best music venues, nobody is singing along because it's brand new material from brand new artists. If you're singing along to well known songs in Temple Bar then I'm afraid you're missing some of the best music the city has to offer, in venues like Whelan's, Workmans, Sin É, The Grand Social etc.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 11 Feb 2026 20:38:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46980571</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46980571</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46980571</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "How London became the rest of the world’s startup capital"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Not sure what point you’re trying to make here in relation to startups.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 29 Jan 2026 10:47:46 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46808371</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46808371</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46808371</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (January 2026)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A domain-agnostic, open source scientific database.<p>“Protein Data Bank-in-a-box”<p><a href="https://opensciencearchive.org" rel="nofollow">https://opensciencearchive.org</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 02:51:25 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46583413</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46583413</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46583413</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (January 2026)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A domain-agnostic, open source scientific database.<p>“Protein Data Bank-in-a-Box”<p><a href="https://opensciencearchive.org" rel="nofollow">https://opensciencearchive.org</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 12 Jan 2026 02:50:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46583399</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46583399</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46583399</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Why users cannot create Issues directly"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Not which parts of this are sarcastic or not, but it was probably running for a few weeks. High variance on that estimate though. I was running 5+ Claude Code instances and a similar number of vim instances.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 02 Jan 2026 19:01:08 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46468128</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46468128</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46468128</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Why users cannot create Issues directly"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I spotted Ghostty using 20GB+ memory a few days ago on MacOS (according to Activity Monitor). I went through all my tmux sessions, killed everything, it was still 20GB+ so I re-started Ghostty. If I see it happen again, I'll take some notes.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 02 Jan 2026 13:27:20 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46464501</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46464501</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46464501</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Relatively speaking, no. Strength training (as opposed to hypertrophy) calls for fewer reps, around 5 per set.<p>Many people advise spending about a year doing more sets of fewer (~5) reps to build strength, and then switch to fewer sets of more reps (8-12) when you want to build muscle mass.<p>Point being, the idea of doing lighter weights until failure is already kind of there in body building wisdom.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 01 Jan 2026 02:11:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46450586</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46450586</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46450586</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Resistance training load does not determine hypertrophy"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> heavy weights with few reps (common body builder wisdom)<p>It is strength training (not body builder) wisdom to use heavy weights with few reps. Hypertrophy (i.e. body builder) programmes usually call for 8-12 reps, which implies relatively low weights.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 01 Jan 2026 01:10:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46450190</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46450190</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46450190</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Beginning January 2026, all ACM publications will be made open access"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> Who else do you suggest and why are they better?<p>The arbiters are just our colleagues, at the end of the day. The journal is just the organisational mechanism, one of many possible mechanisms.<p>For example, I follow a weekly reading list (<a href="https://superlab.ca" rel="nofollow">https://superlab.ca</a>) published by a group of motor control labs at Western University. Those people are my arbiters of quality.<p>I want to continue having arbiters, and I want it to be the same people (broadly speaking). I just don't want them to be organised around journals because journals are toxic and lead to concentrated power over scientific narratives.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2025 12:05:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324911</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324911</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324911</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Beginning January 2026, all ACM publications will be made open access"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>You pay them, they give your work a stamp of prestige that is mostly unrelated to the quality of your work.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2025 11:51:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324799</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324799</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324799</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Beginning January 2026, all ACM publications will be made open access"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> At that point why even have a journal<p>Great question.<p>> the journal system isn't perfect but its the only real check we have left.<p>I wish I could agree but Nature et al continually publish bad, attention-grabbing science, while holding back the good science because it threatens the research programmes that gave the editorial board successful careers.<p>"Isn't perfect" is a massive understatement.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2025 11:49:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324780</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324780</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324780</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Beginning January 2026, all ACM publications will be made open access"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Haha yes I jumped off in a very different direction. The points you raised are very much valid in the short-term. But longer term, I think journals charging authors for some kind of enhanced research presentation service is actually quite valuable, so the short-term negative effects might lead to a good outcome for the industry down the line - we hope.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2025 11:45:50 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324752</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324752</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324752</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Beginning January 2026, all ACM publications will be made open access"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes exactly. Right now they <i>are</i> arbiters of quality but they shouldn't be, and the move towards Open Access is changing their role.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Dec 2025 11:39:57 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324712</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324712</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46324712</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Beginning January 2026, all ACM publications will be made open access"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Indeed, they are irrelevant. Right now they maintain an administrative monopoly over the peer review process, that makes them de-facto arbiters even if it's peers doing the work.<p>Journals should either become tech companies offering (and charging for) new and exciting ways to present scientific research, or simply stop existing.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 18 Dec 2025 22:02:52 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46319430</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46319430</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46319430</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by rorytbyrne in "Beginning January 2026, all ACM publications will be made open access"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I disagree. We haven't chosen quantity over quality, we have decided that journals should not be the arbiters of quality. I think these new incentives are exactly what we want:<p>1. Journals want to publish lots of articles, so they are incentivised to provide a better publishing experience to authors (i.e. better tech, post-PDF science, etc) - Good.<p>2. Journals will stop prioritising quality, which means they will relinquish their "prestige" factor and potentially end the reign of glam-journals - Good.<p>3. Journals will stop prioritising quality, which means we can move to post-publication peer-review unimpeded - Good.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 18 Dec 2025 20:40:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46318358</link><dc:creator>rorytbyrne</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46318358</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46318358</guid></item></channel></rss>